Beyond Arthurian Romances: The Reach of Victorian Medievalism

by Jennifer A. Palmgren, Lorretta M. Holloway

Overview

It has been said that Victorian artists and writers sought validation through derivation. In this collection of eleven interdisciplinary essays, contributors describe the traditional themes, forms and images the Victorians appropriated and the results, including Pugin's architecture, Browning's troubadour, Yonge's Normans, Arnold's Norse, Proctor's convent, Morris's northern warriors and bi-worldly women, and Swinburne's translations of Villon. Essays also address the Protestant re-writing of the medieval, Victorian medievalism as performance, and the refuting of the chivalric ideal near the close of the Victorian age. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230254497
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	06/04/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jennifer A. Palmgren is Assistant Professor of English and Director of General Studies Program, Saint Paul's College. Lorretta M. Holloway is Assistant Professor of Victorian Literature and Composition, Framingham State College.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: THE NEW/OLD FRAMEWORK FOR FEMAL VOCATION Where Medieval Romance Meets Victorian Reality: The "Woman Question" in William Morris's "The Wood Beyond the World"; L.Campbell Lessons from the Medieval Convent: Adelaide Proctor's "A Legend of Provence"; C.A.Colón PART TWO: COMMUNITY: DEVELOPMENT AND RESPONSIBILITY Norse Fatalism and Victorian Mourning in Matthew Arnold's "Balder Dead"; E.Hu & K.Zarins Designing Spaces of Inclusion: Victorian Medievalism and the Creation of Community; C.Wagner PART THREE: THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST "The Worship of Courage": William Morris's "Sigurd and Volsung" and Victorian Medievalism; R.Frith What's Wrong with Raphael? The Pre-Raphaelite Critique of High Renaissance Painting and Affirmation of Medieval Painting; I.Smithson PART FOUR: MODELS FOR FAITH AND AUTHORITY Counter-Medievalism: Or Protestants Rewrite the Middle Ages; M.E.Burstein PART FIVE: VICTORIAN POPULAR CULTURE Charlotte Yonge's Victorian Normans in The Little Duke; S.Wakefield Victorian Medieval Performance; B.Bell Deconstructing the Knight in Shining Armor: The Disillusionment of the Turn of the Century; S.M.Schwab

Editorial Reviews

'Comprehensive in scope and specific in detail, there is much to interest scholar and lay reader, specialist and generalist, in the themes and subjects covered by this book.' - The Journal of William Morris Studies

From the Publisher